S03 E02 | From Self-Doubt to CEO: Angela Foulkes CBE on Stepping Into CEO Leadership

In this episode of Inspiring Working Lives, we speak with Angela Foulkes CBE, Chief Executive and Principal of The Sheffield College, about her journey from Vice Principal to CEO and what stepping into senior leadership in further education really involves. Angela reflects on moving into the CEO role without certainty, and the realities of leading a large FE college through periods of change, inspection, and organisational challenge. She shares honest insights into the early pressures of the role, building the right leadership team, and the importance of creating a strong, student-focused culture. She also discusses the wider value of further education, from transforming student confidence and opportunity to working closely with employers to prepare young people for the world of work.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Inspiring Working Lives, the Morgan Hunt podcast where we explore public sector leadership journeys. From honest chats about career highs and lows to lessons and wisdom to inspire the next generation of leaders that will shape our society.

SPEAKER_03 0:17

Hello, and welcome to the Morgan Hunt Inspiring Working Lives Podcast. Today's guest is Angela Folk, CBE. Angela is chief executive and principal of the Sheffield College, bringing more than 30 years of experience across further education. She began her career in teaching and has since progressed through a range of senior leadership roles, building a strong track record across curriculum development, student support, and skills delivery. Over the years, Angela has taken on responsibilities for spanning skills and employability, pastoral and student services, safeguarding and equality, diversity and inclusion. This breadth of experience gives her a well-rounded perspective on both the operational and strategic challenges facing further education today. Alongside her role at the college, she's actively involved in shaping regional and national skills agendas. She chairs the Sheffield Skills and Employability Board, co-chairs the South Yorkshire Skills Advisory Board, and contributes to wider economic and educational strategy through roles of the Merrill Combined Authority. Angie was awarded a CBE in the 2024 New Year Honours in recognition of her services to further education. Based in Sheffield, she is passionate about the transformative impact of education and outside of work enjoys cycling, running, music, and the theatre. Angela, thank you so much for inviting me to Sheffield College today.

SPEAKER_01 2:09

No problem at all. Welcome.

SPEAKER_03 2:11

We always like to start our podcast by finding out about your childhood, and particularly if you had any career aspirations as a young person.

SPEAKER_01 2:19

See, I grew up in a council, I grew up on a council estate in Manchester, and um my mum and dad still live in their council house. My dad was um a mechanical fitter, so he worked at Kellogg's and we, as kids, me and my brother, we got a lot of the, you know, the little figures that were in the Kellogg's boxes, we got them all three.

SPEAKER_03 2:34

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 2:35

Loads of them all over the house. Um my mum is a dinner lady, and the thing that we did most as a family, we did a lot of sport. And I so I've been thinking about this a little bit, and I think when I was a kid, my aspiration, I genuinely thought I was gonna be on the um ATP tour. I thought I was gonna be a tennis star. Because I that's the thing I can do sport-wise. I can play tennis. But I used to be able to play tennis. If I tried it now, I'd probably injure myself horribly. But yeah, I I genuinely thought I was gonna play Wimbledon one day. That was probably my childhood career aspiration.

SPEAKER_03 3:06

Wow, and did you used to watch it on the TV?

SPEAKER_01 3:08

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:10

Was it a colour TV or was it black and white? Because I was like, When I was really little, it was black and white. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:14

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:15

But then suddenly the green of the court would appear, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:17

Yeah, exactly. And I saw, you know, and I was I was sort of thinking about this. I was thinking about my childhood, and I'm thinking, my mum and dad got um, they got central heating in COVID. And I like they phoned me up one day and said, Oh, are we thinking about getting central heating? And I thought, I thought, I didn't know you didn't have it yet. Seriously, they've only had central heating for about five years. And you know, you know, when you kind of think that was just my normal childhood, was we lived in a small house and it was we had I had a happy childhood. But you know, you don't think about the things that that you just sort of accept as usual now, and it wasn't usual at all, at all, you know. So yeah, they're there. The the thing I remember vividly is because it was a council house, about every three years, someone had come and paint the front door a different colour. It was nice when it was red, it was horrible when it was yellow.

SPEAKER_03 4:06

Right, yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:07

There'd be a man who'd just be painting your front door.

SPEAKER_03 4:10

Right.

SPEAKER_01 4:10

Like rogue.

unknown 4:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:11

Anyway, you know. Oh wow. Yeah, I thought I was gonna be a tennis star.

SPEAKER_03 4:15

Okay. So what happened then during your sort of development, which stopped you becoming a tennis star, and maybe the career moved somewhere else?

SPEAKER_01 4:24

Well, I think I if I can just talk really briefly about um, and I I suppose people in education do this quite a lot, but when I was 10, I had a teacher in my primary school. He was the deputy head, and he decided that the year group that I was in, he was going to prove a point about um getting people through the 11. So he worked with us for two years, and 10 of the people in his class passed the 11 plus. And I was one of those people, and he was a truly inspirational man. He really was. He was a great teacher. But more than that, the thing I remember about him was every Friday afternoon he'd bring his guitar and he'd play Bob Dylan songs, so enduring love for Bob Dylan, um, because of him, and then he'd walk home along the canal tow path, which ran along the top of my street. So I'd walk back with him for the first 10 minutes and then cut down to my house. He'd have his guitar on his back. And this is like this is a teacher, in the you know, so it's kind of it's always stuck with me that he committed to a group of children, and I was really lucky because then I went to a school where education was a prize, you know, it was valued. I don't know that it was the happiest thing I've ever done because as a working class kid going to that kind of school, it was pretty tough, but it gave me a good education, a really good education. Um but I didn't really like it, I didn't like the school, so I quit that when I was 16 and I went to work in a bank. At that point, I was still playing tennis, but I think I realised I probably wasn't good enough for the tour. So, you know, I stuck with local tennis, you know, carried on for a while.

SPEAKER_03 5:58

Got it. Well, it's lovely hearing about that inspirational teacher who worked with. And it's it's funny that through these conversations, there's somebody's a blast from the past that comes up where somebody really made a difference.

SPEAKER_01 6:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:11

And didn't have to make a difference, they chose to make a difference.

SPEAKER_01 6:15

Yep. Oh, yeah, absolutely. And uh, you know, he's he's the sort of enduring teacher, the person that I remember of all my teachers, there's two or three I remember, but I don't know that I would have been on the path that I've been on, which has been very zigzaggy at at all. I genuinely don't think I'd have been anywhere near it had I not had the luxury of him as my teacher. Because the other school was a secondary modern school for girls, so that would have been typing. Right. You know, that kind of traditional, you know, um female jobs.

SPEAKER_03 6:46

And that's not right or fair, is it?

SPEAKER_01 6:48

Oh no.

SPEAKER_03 6:48

Classified at that age, you know, right? This is this is you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:52

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the opportunity for uh an education that included languages and literature and science, well, you know, the way that opens your mind, I think has has probably shaped quite a lot of the choices I've made over a period of time. But the I did leave when I was 16 because I thought I'd had enough of being in a school environment. It felt a bit restrictive to me. Um, and my parents were because of because there's they you know, because it's a working class upbringing, their whole thing is about you need to get a job um because you need to earn some money, because you because that's how life is. So so I I was lucky enough to get a job in um Williams and Glenn's Bank, which only lasted for six months and then it became Royal Bank of Scotland.

unknown 7:35

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 7:36

I got a pen, commemorative pen. It's probably still in my mum's house somewhere. Um and I stuck that for three years. I managed to do that for three years. I was um I I quite liked the the sort of banking and finance world in a way. I didn't mind it at all. But attitudinally, I don't think it was for me because I did spend a lot of time making tea and coffee. Right. And stuffing envelopes and doing very menial admin tasks. And you know, that wasn't very thrilling.

SPEAKER_03 8:08

Did were you observing what was going on though in the bank in terms of some of those interactions, maybe with a manager or assistant manager? Yeah. Thinking, oh that's how it's done.

SPEAKER_01 8:17

Yeah, I I suppose um there were some really good role models and there were some really awful role models. And I think the thing that, you know, if if you so I like to think I am quite observant and I was aware of when it was working, you know. So I there was um there was a manager in the bank at one point who was just really good with the people in the bank. And what what that looked like if you were me and you were 18, was someone who genuinely was, you know, sort of said good morning to you and asked you if you'd had a nice weekend, and it said it felt like nothing. But the person who replaced them was utterly disinterested, and it was just, are you on time? Have you done it quick enough? Is it working well enough? You know, and and often it would be um we've run out of milk, you need to go and get it, and I'd be like, Okay, right, but that's uh you know, why me? There was a little bit of why me. Um meanwhile, though, my friends that I had from school had stayed on at school. So for two years they were around and it was fun, and then they went to university and I thought, wait a minute, I'm still here. So I sort of contemplated this a little bit. And what I'd done was instead of I obviously had some something subconscious that was um not wedded to working in a bank because rather than take up banking exams, I went to night school to central Manchester College and did A levels at night. So I did one a year for three years, and so subconsciously I'd made a decision to to do academic study without really thinking it through. So I used to hop on a train into Manchester, do my three hours of night school, and then hop on a bus home. And I did that twice a week for three years. And when I think about it now, I think, what was I thinking? You know, that's a massive commitment. Um, but I still did it. Um so when my friends had gone, I thought, why aren't I going? Why aren't I thinking about university? Why aren't I sort of taking that leap? Why am I staying here? Um, and I thought, what's better than being an accountant? That's what I thought. Do with that what you will.

SPEAKER_03 10:30

Okay, so you've but you're thinking, right, so I'm kind of in this world of finance, and maybe the step up is accountancy.

SPEAKER_01 10:36

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:37

Okay, so you go off to university to study accountancy.

SPEAKER_01 10:40

Yeah, yeah, I did.

SPEAKER_03 10:42

And how was that?

SPEAKER_01 10:43

I think well, the world of university was I mean, I left Manchester, I went to London. So, and that was great. You know, so just as a young person in London, it was like a huge explosion of of experience. Um, and for the first year, I think accountancy was it's kind of I found that I found it fairly easy. You know, I found it an easy thing to do. So, so I was kind of probably coasting a little bit and enjoying my life. And as I went into the second year of it, I kind of lost my love of it for a little because it's it's I don't think it was for me. I don't think it had enough um creativity and in the right way. And I don't think it it was I don't think it was, you know, when I was talking about my school and I sort of said there was science, there was literature, there was languages, and then I moved into a very technical, repetitive almost world. And so, you know, I I kind of stuck at it, but I didn't love it. And I think the sort of defining moment for me was knowing that I just really couldn't see myself in an accountancy firm in an office day after day. And at this point, you know, it's it's kind of the late 80s, early 90s, and I, you know, that whole look and feel, I'd sort of gone from banking attire, which would fit in the world of accountancy, to um ripped jeans, no hair, literally no hair. Right. A slight it was expensive to get your hair cut.

SPEAKER_02 12:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:17

So I just shaved it off, for example. And you know, that sort of I'd I'd moved into a different space in my little world. Um, so I thought I can't do this. Life's too short.

unknown 12:30

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 12:31

Um so I've got the skills, and I sometimes use them. I'm very quiet about it at work, so this is a bit of a public outing. You know. Um, but it wasn't for me as a long-term option, really.

SPEAKER_03 12:45

Right. But you are picking up skills all this time, aren't you? You're learning different things, and you're also learning what you don't want to be and who you're not.

SPEAKER_01 12:54

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think there was there was a l uh something that I think I realised was that the part-time jobs that I were pick was picking up were very public, like usual jobs for students. So I was working in shops or I was working in bars, and I was and I get a lot of energy from other people. And I I think that part of the the reason for me pausing and thinking, is this actually for me? Is I felt like I needed a bit more and I wanted to experience um a world where there was more creativity, there was a bit more, I don't know, probably more politics, even perhaps, you know, something that was a bit less transactional, so and a few more people. And I don't I think that taking the the years that I had along the way, but the banking job was about people, you know. What whatever the skill was that you were executing standing at the counter, it was still about the people who came to the counter. And I I don't know, I had a a sort of urge to yeah, I wanted to do something different. Took a bit of a pun. I started again, that was pretty tricky. I um I got a pretty much full-time job in Woolworths, so I was the toy lady in Woolworths. That is literally what my title was Toy Lady in Woolworths for nearly three years.

SPEAKER_03 14:09

What was your best seller?

SPEAKER_01 14:11

Uh Simpsons Toys. Wow. Genuinely one year it was um wrestlers, yeah. One year it was The Simpsons, it was always at Christmas the board games. You would not believe how many people buy Monopoly at Christmas, or they did then, anyway.

SPEAKER_03 14:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:23

Crazy. Wow.

SPEAKER_03 14:25

Okay, so you've got this kind of conflict building.

SPEAKER_01 14:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:30

How did you resolve it?

SPEAKER_01 14:32

So I I switched direction and I decided I'd give myself I thought, oh well, I will work in Woolworths and I will switch paths. And I did um a degree in cultural studies, which meant that I could study literature, art history, media, um, women's studies, you know, gender studies, film studies. I could kind of do a multidisciplinary, social sciences, humanities type degree, and I could just go, what's going on in the world? You know, I could learn a little bit more about the world and about how it works, as opposed to, you know, some something just a little bit more, I don't know, it felt more my style, a little bit more my pace. Um so I went off to do that. And I think the the learning of that was it was just fantastic. But I think combining that with pretty much working full-time, which because I was self-supporting, you know, I'd spent all the money I was entitled to. So this time around, um, to be able to afford it, I had to work to pay for all of it. And so I so I had this, it was like a bit like a split personality, actually. So on on some parts of the week I was at university with my university friends learning about the world, learning about a different way of thinking, a different political way of thinking, a different perspective on you know how people work, how people live together in communities, you know, all that kind of stuff. And then I was popping into the East End to work in Woolworths with people whose permanent job that was, because I didn't ever think of that as my permanent job, but it was theirs. And those people became really good friends of mine because I was there for so long, you know. And they were people who it was two totally different groups of people, and contemplating how that worked, the whole of that Woolworths thing, how it worked, and how the managers worked, and how it felt to be part of that team. It felt good to be part of a team like that because they were proper people, you know. And some days it was awful, and some days it was amazing, and the Christmas parties were always raucous, you know. And I have a friend from then thinking about how long it is, and every year, birthday card and Christmas card, every year, even now, you know, it's it's fantastic, you know. But it I suppose the thing it showed me was that you know, well, there's a bit of a resilience thing in there because it was really hard to get up on a Saturday morning. Imagine I'm a student and I'm gone out on a Friday night, and then I've got up on a Saturday morning and I'm in this shop at half past eight. And it's my proper job at that point. And I'm thinking I've I've got to make this look like I'm actually here. Whereas in body I'm here, but in spirit, no chance, you know. And and it but it was people serious jobs, so I had to take it seriously, and you know, the the the manager there was um interesting, fairly laid back, um, high standards, but when it came to it, he he expected us to turn up and do our jobs well, and I was kind of like, well, yeah, we're okay, that's fair, you know. There weren't many rules.

SPEAKER_03 17:33

Right.

SPEAKER_01 17:34

You know, it was good. It was a good time, it was just exhausting.

SPEAKER_03 17:38

Exhausting. Yeah, but it it was culture, I guess, that would that held it together and made everybody perform at a high level.

SPEAKER_01 17:45

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I also think there's something about if if you're working with a tea a a group of people who genuinely like each other as well, respectfully, they they liked each other, and there was always banter. So the break times was always banter, and it was good banter. It was it was proper people's banter. It wasn't, you know, that that was their that was their life, it was their life's work. And to be part of it felt kind of special. I I stuck it nearly the whole of that study time that I did. Um, I finished working there just before I finished that course, and then I felt a little bit adrift. And uh at it so at the end of that course, this is where I think I took a very huge veer. I was, I thought I can't do nothing for a whole summer because I'm not that person, I'm always busy. Um, and I saw at university, I saw an advert to volunteer. So I ended up volunteering every Wednesday at Newham Sixth Form College with some GMVQ students, just as a like, I suppose as a teaching assistant. But when I signed up for it, I don't think I knew what it was. I thought, I think I just thought I'll do some volunteering. Because I did a bit of other volunteering and I quite liked being a volunteer, it's just interesting because you meet loads of different people. Anyway, so I turned up at Newham Sixth Form College every Wednesday afternoon, I think it was. Um, and it's I think it was GMVQ business studies, so you know, loads of 16-year-olds in a room mucking about and whatever. But it was really, really good. I really enjoyed it. I kind of enjoyed being the teaching assistant. Maybe it's because I could drop in and out. Don't know, but I kind of quite like the vibe of it. And at this point, I'm starting to realise that I really like working with people. That, you know, I I didn't think I did, because you know, it's a lot of effort, isn't it? And it's it's kind of but if I look at everything I'd been doing, there was always people somewhere along the way. Anyway, so I do this, I think this is good, I don't mind this. Maybe I could do something with this. So I saw an advert for um the first year of the PGCE post-16 at London's Institute of Education. I thought I'll give that a punt. Totally speculative, just not just speculative, nothing. Um so I applied for that and I got accepted and was a bit like, how did that happen? That's very wrong. This is July, and the course starts in September. So this is very, you know, it was very ad hoc, I would describe it as. So I was the first cohort of that qualification to do that through the Institute of Education in London. It was really it that was whirlwind. So that was learning to be a teacher in nine months. You know, but but it was it was literally in in the sort of June, I thought, oh, if I did a bit of volunteering, it'll be fine. By September, I was learning to be a teacher. And I I can honestly say that I don't think any of that was planned. It was just I saw something and I thought, oh, I'll give that a punt. And then I saw something else and thought, well, that was quite good fun. What if I actually sort of gave it a shot? And see what saw what happened? All in the space of a couple of months, and then before I knew it, yeah, there I was, learning to be a teacher and being told after a month that I had a placement in a college. I was like, really?

SPEAKER_03 21:01

How did I get here?

SPEAKER_01 21:02

No, I know, uh nothing. I had nothing at this point. I was going, I don't know what I'm doing. Which is kind of a yeah, felt like a lot of responsibility to not know what I was doing.

SPEAKER_02 21:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:13

I'm sure the teachers who were looking after me felt the same, to be honest.

SPEAKER_03 21:16

Yes, yeah. Okay, so then you turn up in your college for the first time.

SPEAKER_01 21:21

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 21:22

As a paid-for teacher, yes, once well, so so I do that year. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:28

And then I spent three years as an hourly paid lecturer in London.

SPEAKER_03 21:32

Right.

SPEAKER_01 21:33

Um, and I had worked in lots of different colleges. I had some good luck moments where um the first job I ever got as an hourly paid lecturer, I sent my CV to loads of places. And this person phoned me up and she said, I think you were in the same year doing your degree as my daughter. And we had a conversation and I said, Oh no, I remember your daughter, yeah, yeah. And she said, Oh, why don't you come in and you can do some hours teaching GCSE English? And I went, Thanks very much. I mean, how Odd is that, you know, just what a break.

SPEAKER_02 22:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:03

But because that was Lewisham College, which at the time was an amazing college, I mean it's still an amazing college, but right then it was that it's you know, um, that led to a spin-off into a few other jobs. Yeah. So so I got lucky, I got properly lucky, and then I worked hard. So I uh and in that first year I had two or three colleges I worked for, I did at least 25 hours a week, you know. I did that for three years, and in the summer of the third year, I thought this is the last year I can do this as an hourly paid. This is really hard, it's exhausting. If I don't get a permanent job this year, I am done with this. I need something else. Not because I don't like it and I don't want to do it, I love it, but I can't sustain the work level. You know, it is tricky having two or three different jobs managing all the different systems, you know, all that stuff.

SPEAKER_02 22:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:51

So I put myself out there and I did end up with, I ended up with two job offers that summer. Share good luck. Um I took one at a tertiary college, I took a permanent job at tertiary college in Harrow, which was as a teacher, probably my favourite job ever. You know, of all the teaching I've ever done, I think that was probably the job that I enjoyed the most. Why? Maybe it was because it was my first job as a permanent paid teacher. Maybe it was the team, because the team was so professional and they were so well organised. And I walked in there as a novice, you know, and everything was theirs. So I they were cabinets, filing cabinets of resources, and you know, and it was like paradise in a way, because I would open a cabinet and I get lost in it because it was just well, it was learning for me as well. And you know, they had for for a kid who'd I'd always read a lot, you know, I've always read a lot, I still read a lot, and you know, I'd open a cupboard door and there'd be thousands of books in this cupboard, and I'd be like, what is going on here? This is like paradise for me, you know, it was amazing. But I also think it's that the the whole place was about learning, and the students were there because they wanted to learn something and they wanted to go on to university or whatever they wanted to do, and they were absolutely delightful. And I was a personal tutor, I'd never been a personal tutor. That was new, you know. So it was great. It was great. In my second year there, I got off with a chance to be a curriculum manager. I think it's because I work hard, you know. I've got quite a hard work ethic. So I think because I was there, busy, focused, you know, I was getting stuff done. I was really, I was really into it, you know. This was great, it was the best thing ever. So I got this chance to be a curriculum, I was a terrible curriculum manager, I had no idea how to manage. I had absolutely no clue. I've I think about this sometimes in this, the job I have now, and I kind of think if you're a really good teacher, if you're really good at that, that part of the job, doesn't mean you're gonna be a great manager, does it? And I was a terrible curriculum manager because I thought, you know, if you just say to someone, you need to do this, and then you they're probably gonna do it. You know, and and maybe my ideas weren't the best, and maybe if the things that I wanted to change weren't that good of an idea, but I thought they were. I was young and I was keen, you know. I don't think it was my finest hour.

SPEAKER_03 25:10

Right, okay. How did you get through that?

SPEAKER_01 25:13

I think some of it I was lucky because I'd been working there 18 months or so and the people were really lovely, and you know, there was some there were some good people there who kind of went, what is it you're trying to do? You know, good questions for me. And the other thing is I I do know I I think I'm alright at kind of going, yeah, I've totally got that wrong. You know, those are my sleepless nights. I knew I was getting it wrong, and there were a couple of people there I trusted well enough to sort of say, I'm getting this really wrong. What is it I'm doing? I've I you know, what could I do differently? You know, and there were some people there who gave their time, which is the the joy of teachers, to be honest. You know, teachers are good at giving their time and kind of sometimes being a bit brutal, but most of the time offering advice, you know, and the person that I that was upset with, there was a person who was really upset with me, and I kind of said I've really upset you, and I didn't mean to, and I'm so sorry, I just don't know what I'm doing, you know. Yeah, I've never done this before, so what what can I do? You know, and that that that person heard their response immediately, you know, soft shoulders, straight back down. When well, why don't we do it together? And I was like, that'd help, you know. So I think sometimes, yeah, I was pretty bad, I have to say.

SPEAKER_03 26:29

But another great lesson that sort of you know, that I think people go two ways in that situation, they either stiffen the veneer of management almost, which is you can't possibly talk to me like that, or you know, there's a humanity and an expression of, you know, let's do this together. And people buy into that more, don't they?

SPEAKER_01 26:47

Yeah, everything. The person that helped me in that moment, I'd I've only just thought of this. What a theme this is. Um, still sends me a birthday and a Christmas card. And I haven't worked with that person since 2000.

unknown 27:00

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 27:01

I know I've just thought of that. Literally this minute, I've just gone, what is it with Christmas and birthday cards with me? And so, you know, sort of lasting impressions, the people who do that are the people who probably helped me. They weren't, you know, like along the way, they're probably the people who gave. Even when I was getting it really wrong.

SPEAKER_03 27:22

And continue to give.

SPEAKER_01 27:23

Yeah, yeah. And show interest. One year I didn't get a Christmas card from that person at Total Panic. I'm on the email. I'm going, Are you alright? You know, they're older than me, so I was going, You alright? Everything alright? Yeah, I just didn't get around to it that year. It's me panicking. It's quite quite funny, actually. But yeah. Um, yeah, it's a good point. But I I do think that my realisation about maybe five or six years later was that I probably like I'm a lifelong learner without really ever realizing that I am. You know, that it took me too, it took me quite a long time to realise that I actually genuinely like learning. So I'm kind of seeking feedback or I'm looking, I'm kind of going, why did that not work? You know, or that worked really well, why did that work really well? And I'm I'm really keen to understand. Um apparently this has got something to do with having engineers in the family who need to know how things work.

unknown 28:20

Right.

SPEAKER_01 28:21

This is the definition my family have applied to need to know. Need to know why, apparently. But you know, half fantastic.

SPEAKER_03 28:30

Okay, so this is a great story. It's all building now, and you've made your first breakthrough into leadership. It's not been straightforward.

SPEAKER_01 28:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:37

But you're starting to work your way through it.

SPEAKER_01 28:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:39

Where does it go next?

SPEAKER_01 28:42

Um, I I left I left that job because the job changed. Um, and I thought, well, do I want to stick around a bit? Do I want to move on? I moved on. Interestingly, I followed the the college, there was college merger, and I followed one of the principals. One of the principals moved on of the two colleges. And I followed the one that hadn't been my principal. Because in the merger process, um I felt that there was a a level of transparency, respect, authority, a kind of a leadership style that I felt I could get along with. So I followed that person into a different job, and I took a cross-college job in a six-form college, um, which was a pretty tricky job because I'd never worked across a college, I'd always worked in a department, and this is bearing in mind, I wasn't that long into my career as a teacher. So I took this cross-college job and thought, well, I've got no idea how to work across the college. You know, I guess this is a learning curve that is going to come at me, you know, fairly quickly. Um, but it was a six-form college, so it was one site, there were some really good people. And the thing that I learned was if you had lunch in the canteen with the table of people who always had lunch in the canteen, you could get a lot done. And they were lovely, they were such lovely people, and they worked in all of the different departments, and so I just kind of plonked down in my first week and went, I'm new here, I don't know anybody. Hello! All right, um, and they were so so lovely, and I'd be kind of right, this job, I've got to do this job. How am I gonna do it so that it doesn't, you know, what do you want it to do? And they were like, over lunch for about three weeks, just telling me what not to do, because this college had been, it's quite parochial because it's in a town outside of London, so you know, the people who worked there kind of lived around it, all the students were from the town. Wasn't because in London colleges lots of movement, so so they were trying to explain to me that whatever I did, I had to consider um how people would respond and react to it, and you know, so picking their brains a lot. Um, I stuck that job for two years. It was a great job actually, and it was a really lovely college. Um, and I only changed that job because um at the end towards the end of that job, um, I had my first child and it was a long journey. So I thought I need a job close to home. I probably would have still worked there for a lot longer, actually, but it was just too far to travel.

unknown 31:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:07

So so I but I the things that I gained there was that cross-college piece and how to influence rather than lead. That was the key, the key kind of learning point for me because I had literally no authority over how people did their jobs because I didn't lead or lie manage any of them directly. So what I had to do was create a compelling case for change and and influence people to get on board, which is not an easy task and takes a lot of communicating. And I don't know that it was it wasn't entirely successful, um you know, but it it was definitely a learning curve for me, and it was definitely it was fun, it was quite a lot of fun. Um, and because it was a small place, I think it was manageable, but you know, it that was I think probably that was the start of that cross-college piece that that I kept threading back through afterwards. Right. Um when I left there, I went to work in a college in north northeast um London, which was brilliant. That before this job, that job was the one that I've had for the longest. So I stayed there five years. Um that was a college that was in trouble when I went there. You know, that they were they were not in a great place from a quality point of view, so the task was to improve quality. Um that was probably I loved that job, but and there were a couple of reasons for that. Um as the head of the department, did I get everything right? No, not really. Um, they were a team who didn't necessarily understand that they were providing grade four education, and I don't know that I'd appreciated how um a frank conversation might not land well. So I was very frank. And you know, it took about six months to regroup from brutal honesty.

SPEAKER_03 32:59

Right.

SPEAKER_01 33:00

So that was a good learning curve for me.

SPEAKER_03 33:02

And wasn't the lunchtime opportunity with these guys then?

SPEAKER_01 33:05

Well, those were people that I line managed. So this is a slightly different thing. So I'm the head of department and I'm trying to talk to the curriculum managers and the teachers and to say to them, look, we've got a lot of work to do because the college is grateful, but also this area, you know, we've got a lot of improvement to do. And I don't know that anybody had laid out for them that that team needed to improve. And so, but I started with we need to improve as opposed to where do you think we are? You know, when I sort of reflect on it now, you know, I could have I could have just as easily asked them where they thought they were, where they thought the the level of the teaching and learning was, what they thought of their student outcomes. Yeah, I could have asked them lots and lots of questions. What I did was go in there and say, you know, clearly this isn't good enough. Not I didn't literally say that, but you know, that's effectively what they heard. And it took a long time to regroup from that. You know, it took a it took a longer time to regroup than I thought. I also think at that point, because it was a new college and a new team for me, I didn't really fit anywhere. It was a big college, so you know, it was a much bigger college, so I didn't really fit anywhere. And it took me about a year to find my group. And I signed myself up for a leadership course at this college, and the people on that course became my group of people, and they were my peer group or slightly above my peer, like you know, my sort of pay grade peer group. And those people are still friends of mine now, you know, a bunch of four. They do buy me beer at the AOC conference, so that'll do instead, you know. So this is good. And we try to catch up at least once a year in person outside of the AOC conference, but but I it took me a little while to find somewhere to fit um because it was a true leadership role. It it was that you know, it was proper line management, it was dealing with people whose performance was not quite good enough, and there was a lot to do in that college to improve quality and standards. So it it was it was a tricky job to do. I think the first two years I probably got 40% right, you know, in terms of how things landed, how things felt. I did the leadership course and really learned a lot about my drivers and my logic, you know, how I think about things. And I reflected a lot on that and thought, yeah, the things that drive me don't drive other people. So, you know, my my upbringing has a lot to do with the things that drive me. And everybody else has got a different set of drivers, and what we need to do is kind of like be conscious of that because I'm thinking we just need to work hard and get on, you know, like let's get this done. And other people are in a totally different headspace, you know. So it was good to be a learner, and it was good to have people to lean on in my peer group, and I I still treasure that now. Um, and I stayed at that job for five years, and I was really proud of what we did there. It was it was great, you know. And we we did we turned that college around and collectively, and I still think of that with a great deal of fondness in terms of what I learned about myself in in leadership and what I learned about how people respond to leaders. You know, how how just the way that you walk around a place can really influence how people think about you, and you're not always going to get it right, and sometimes not getting it right isn't the point. So I didn't necessarily get it right, but underneath the premise of what I was trying to do was right, how I put it out there might have been a little bit wrong. You know, I I learned a lot about that, which was good.

SPEAKER_03 36:41

But that self-awareness is crucial, isn't it, as part of the learning process. Because if you're not prepared to say, Oh, I biffed that one or I could have done that better, how do you ever get better?

SPEAKER_01 36:51

Yeah, I I don't think so. I think over the following years, I think I've I got a lot better at saying, I'm sorry I got that so wrong. Whereas at that point in my working life, I think I wasn't, I wasn't quite as aware that just literally saying, I'm so sorry I got that wrong, would have changed an entire moment, you know, and that the power of just saying, I'm not sure I got that right, you know. It is so transformative for some people. And I think just stopping for a minute, every now and then stopping and going, wait a minute, how am I gonna do this? I think my big takeaway from that job was not what I was trying to do, but how I was doing it. And I come back to that a lot even now. I I often say to the team I work with now, I say, you know, you know, we've had a lot of conversations about what we're gonna do, but do you want to talk through how you're gonna do it? Because how is so much more powerful. And and that's a lot of that is about how people react, respond, how people hear what you've said, you know, like whether they hear how you've said it or the words you've said, you know. I really believe that if you put more effort into how, you're more likely to kind of get things moving. Yeah, just me.

SPEAKER_03 38:04

Great message, great lesson. Okay, and where's the road take you next then?

SPEAKER_01 38:08

So so at this point, my kids are I think six and three, and we've decided as a family we'll relocate, which was massive. So we relocated to Sheffield. Um, I had a job at a diff another college in South Yorkshire. It was a it was a massive, massive leap. Um, so I'd lived, you know, my family we'd lived in London for 20 years and we sticks, moved to Sheffield. Uh the only other time I'd ever been to Sheffield was for a gig in the 1980s. Really? And for an interview at the University of Sheffield. Right. That was it. I I came over here to see a non-known, a not a known band. You know, just I got on the train one night and I thought, that sounds good, we'll do that, shall we? Yeah, let's do that. Um anyway, if I would give my 18-year-old self-advice, it would be don't just jump on a train randomly. Although I probably would ignore myself quite now, right now, wouldn't I?

SPEAKER_00 39:03

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SPEAKER_01 39:26

Um so we so I yeah, I'd never really been to Sheffield and I I took a job um in the other college. That was a cross-college job. It was again a college, grade four college, lots and lots to do. Um, I stayed there about five years and I learned so much. I learned so much about myself in that job. It was a really hard job, and I learned how to how to manage conflict. Conflict in an organization and conflict in a team as well. There was a lot of conflict because there was a lot of work. You know, it's it was a big turnaround. It was a really successful turnaround, and some of the innovation and some of the opportunities I got there were amazing. So I got the opportunity to be creative, to take risks. I learned about what what I learned, one of the key things I learned about myself is that I've got quite a high risk appetite. So I'll I'll give it a shot. Which I think, you know, when I reflect on my work pattern, I've taken lots of, I've kind of gone, oh, what's the worst thing that can happen? I'll give it a shot, without really thinking about that as a risk appetite. And I landed in this college and was given the opportunity to try things, which meant that I really, I really went, why don't we give this a go? Why don't we give that? I was introducing things, a couple of things a year in that role. They weren't always popular. Um, sometimes, you know, my colleagues thought that the ideas I had were just ridiculous. And I so I learned to be very resilient, I learned to take a lot of criticism, um, but I also learned how to um really think through an idea end-to-end and to position it so that you could have a conversation about it and to get help. So I learned how to work into an executive team where you took your ideas, you fleshed them out, you asked people to get on board, and you made it really clear what you needed from them when everybody left the room. I learned all about how to kind of secure that, I suppose, investment, whether it's time, resource, or even just people being behind you. Um it was those was there were some pretty tough days, you know. Um good lessons learned though, and the ability to kind of, you know, the person I worked for there gave me a lot of rope. Um, I think there was one occasion where it was the worst punt you could ever possibly. I mean, it didn't go well. It was a it was a bad moment, you know. But I think I think the way that I handled it, so I owned it. I said, this has gone horribly wrong, you know, but realistically, no one is injured. Hurt, you know, financially it's a it's minor. Um reputationally, it's fine. It's just been time and effort, and I think that's okay, you know. But I owned it, and you know, for that there was a little bit of respect and a kind of what won't you do ever again? That was okay as well. Good question. Now you've kind of owned that this hasn't worked, what would you do differently? Because you know, so I felt a bit topped off, but not to the extent that I would stop trying, you know. I I never did stop trying.

SPEAKER_03 42:34

Um so what's driving you at this stage to keep trying, to keep improving, to keep changing things for the better?

SPEAKER_01 42:42

I think somewhere along the way, between those last two jobs, um I genuinely found a love for the sector. I I genuinely, and you know, and I'm sure that most of the people you talk to, you know, I I genuinely think post-16 education does transform lives. I think honestly, I I'm not I'm not so sure about the whole, I mean it is a second chance for some people, but I think it's the transformative power, whether it's your first chance, your second, or your fifth. You know, that there's there's such a lot in the post-16 space that happens that people underestimate. So I think just being part of something that where you can see that somebody has gained something, whether it's confidence, resilience, a qualification. Sometimes the qualification is the least important bit of it. You know, they're they're sort of almost a pit stop along the way to somebody achieving, you know, their dream job or getting to university or whatever it was. You know, and somewhere, somewhere in all of that, I I don't know, I I kind of I I really, really like the energy that colleges have, and I really like the sort of student activity and the buzz you get from kind of seeing somebody achieve. So you know that this. Student awards are so joyous, and it's sometimes it's the smallest things, sometimes it's the big things. So I think by the time I'm in the sort of vice principal job, I'm kind of really driven by the fact that you know, a college that does the rough does really good things that and that takes some risks, a college that focuses on students, first and foremost, students, that's for me. You know, this this works for me. And I'm prepared to do the long days and I'm prepared to kind of put in the reading, I'm prepared to put in the effort because I genuinely think it does transform lives, so why wouldn't you? You know, and I I think there was a little bit of me that perhaps was in my in the next job that I took, I went back to the college where I'd done my A levels, my evening class, just by accident, I went back there. That's where I ended up working. In my interview, I mentioned that I'd done night school there, and I think it flicked a switch for one of the panel, which was funny because it was like a million years ago. Um, but I think underneath it all, without without the opportunity to get on a train and go to that night, those night school classes, I don't know where I'd have been. You know, I I'm not sure what would have happened to me because without that choice, I don't know whether I'd ever have made it to London, which means I don't know if I'd have ever made it through this journey, you know. And I'm not going to speculate on it, obviously, but going to night school did something different for me, you know, even though it was tortuous.

SPEAKER_03 45:26

And you see that with the students coming into your college every day.

SPEAKER_01 45:29

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I I I think maybe there's a little bit of that underneath it.

unknown 45:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:33

Maybe.

unknown 45:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 45:35

It's so important, particularly at the moment, there's all this debate about university and student debt. Yeah. It's time for FE really to get loud and proud about the things it can do, and particularly when you look at modern UK in terms of what we need right now, we need to a hopeful start for young people.

SPEAKER_01 45:53

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I I do think I think what what's what's really, really fascinating about the way that colleges work is the breadth of and it's not the breadth of the qualification offer, because that's always been the case, really, you know, in in the places I've worked, but it's the breadth of the wraparound. So the amount of work we do here, for example, with employers, and I know most of my colleagues, you know, they'd say exactly the same thing, to be able to attract employers who come and inspire our students or give them a reality check. This is the career you you're interested in. This is what it's like every day. You know, these are the good bits, these are the bits you have to put. You know, if somebody had really said to me when I thought I was going to be an accountant, mate, you're gonna end up sitting looking at like ledges for you know, five hours a day. If you're lucky, it might be five, if not eight. I probably would have gone, yeah, no, I'm not doing that. When I was 17, as opposed to when I've been doing it for a bit, you know, I it might have changed my mind. So some of the stuff we do in colleges that's that some of the sort of broader educational pieces, I think, are so vital right now. They're just vital.

SPEAKER_03 47:00

Yeah, so important. Okay, so this is all building and building at some stage, there's an unusual route to a CEO role, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 47:10

Yeah, so so I um I'd been away from from working in South Yorkshire for a while, and the commute was okay, but it was a big, you know, it was I thought time for a change. There is never a reason, there never has been any reason, um, really. So when I've moved on from jobs, it's usually because I've seen something. Um I've never been looking. I've never looked. Apart the only time I ever really looked was when we thought we might leave London. That was when I looked, because we thought we might leave. But we were only going to leave if there was something that came up. So I'm not looking for a new job, but I see a job in Sheffield and I think I give it a punt. I honestly, when you know, thinking about what I'm saying to you, there's a lot of giving a punt in I'm like, I'll give it a punt. Um, so I applied for the principal's job at this college. Um, I didn't know a massive amount about the college, I'd lived in Sheffield for a while, but I'd never worked here. And what I knew, I knew from working in the sector. I knew some of the people who worked here because I was on the circuit, you know, networking and whatever. Um, so I applied for the principal's job and um I came for the interview. And the day that I came for the interview, it was the day after the Manchester bombing. And I was working at Manchester College, and my job there was um, I was a vice principal there, and I had responsibility for safeguarding and things like that. So I nearly didn't come to the interview. So I rang in and I said, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm not gonna go to this interview, I'm gonna come to work because this is awful, and I'm just I'm gonna come in. And my boss there said, No, you're okay, just do it, and we'll phone you. Just you know, check in every now and then. We've got this, you know, it's fine. And I thought, I don't feel quite right about this. And then, but but I I came for the interview, and you know, I was I was lucky enough to be successful, I was successful, and I was a bit like, What? I was genuinely surprised because I think on the day I was marginally more distracted than I might have been usually, um, and I said at the beginning, you know, I'm I may have to take a phone call, I might be distracted, but my job there is this, and this is, you know, I'm here, but you know, anyway, that so they offered me the job and I said, that's brilliant, you know, fantastic. Um at that at the point of taking the job, um, I think two or three things happened. The first thing that happened was I had a sudden realisation that I'd never worked where I lived. I still think about that now. Um, never, never had a job where I'd lived near to where near to a college that I was working in. Never. So this was new. Um, so and I still to this day miss the commute time for thinking. I still miss that, which is interesting. So I've had to find other ways of finding the time to think because I get home too quickly, which is a luxury but weird. Um the other thing was that at my leaving do I said to a colleague, I said to a friend of mine who is a colleague here now, I said, I don't even know if I can do this job. I genuinely don't. I mean, I'm gonna try, but I might be awful at it. Um and and he said, Why would you say that? And I said, Well, I've never done a job like this before. It's a massive college. And I could this could be the worst thing I've ever done, and I could be terrible at it. And his advice to me was, Well, you won't know till you try. And I thought, yeah, alright, dad, thanks. Um, you will be okay, you'll be fine. And if you're not, what's the worst thing that's gonna happen? And I thought, I asked him that sometime because he works with me now, and sometimes I go, What's the worst thing that could happen then? You know, now you're here, kind of. So we have fun conversations, but I do remember having um, for the first time ever in a move, a level of worry that I had never had. I think it's because it was um possibly a proper responsibility, you know, like there wasn't there wasn't much of a gap between me and anybody else. So, you know, as as you move, as I've moved jobs, there's always been somebody else, and there's always been a peer group, there's always been even as a vice principal in the two colleges I worked in, there was there was peer group, you know, and this felt so pointy that there wasn't a great deal of anything else. So, anyway, I joined the Sheffield College and um and within the first half term, what I'd realized was the Sheffield College, it was we we were due an inspection. Um, there was a high level of confidence in the governors and the and the leadership team about the inspection. I knew by half-term that that was unfounded. Um the deputy principal knew, and so we we were we worked hard together to kind of work out what that meant. Like, what was I seeing that wasn't visible to other people? Um it didn't feel like a happy organization, you know. So I was quite happy. I'd kind of joined and I was quite kind of this is great, isn't it? You know, how much fun is this? This is you know, I'm really nervous, but at the same time, this is really exciting. Um, and I kind of get in the lift and I'd say good morning and nobody would reply, and I'd be like, Oh, this is a miserable place. I don't know about this. Oh, what have I done? You know, have I done the right thing? Um, and so we knew that we had Ofsted come in. We also had invited the FE Commissioner to come and do a diagnostic assessment of the organisation as a pilot, which worried me because you know I didn't know what that would bring as the principal. Um by the time the FE Commissioner came, um I was acting chief exec. Um, I'd never been a chief exec, I didn't even know what that meant. You know, you you know, I sort of say this to people sometimes, and I when I when I talk about being the chief exec, and I I've worked it out with the help of um the chair of the college, he's amazing. He's not the chair now, but the chair at the time, what an amazing man. And he said to me one day, you need to be more the chief exec. And I went, What do you even mean? I had such a good relationship with him. Um and he said, Well, you need to get out and about and do stuff. And I was like, I don't even know what that means. I really genuinely don't. Um, but what what we kind of what we agreed between us was because this is how I have managed being the chief exec straight principal, is um the chief exec feels more about the statutory pieces and the external networking, and the principal feels more like looking in and and doing the curriculum in the college. And so for the first couple of years that I was here, I was very 80-20 the principal, because the college needed attention. And I I really care about all of that stuff. I really care about student experience, so I threw myself into that. And the longer I've been here, the more I've been sort of 50-50, a bit more chief exec, if I don't need to be quite so much the principal, you know. And I've been able to sort of do a bit more of the external stuff because I I kind of people in the external landscape respond to the chief exec words that more than they do the principal. People in education respond to the principal. You know, like it's quite a it's quite an interesting vocabulary that generates people's response to you. Um anyway, so I was interim chief exec from about November. And then the chair decided that he wanted a different structure for, because chief exec and principal, he decided he just wanted one job. And so in the March, I haven't been here a year at this point, um, the principal's role was deleted, and I was effectively redundant with an opportunity to apply for an externally advertised chief exec and principal role, or there was um a role that was a suitable alternative as the um, I think it was the deputy chief exec role, was a permanent role that I could um step into if I wanted to. So I thought, well, that's fine, I'll apply for the role, and I knowing I've got this other role, so it's fine. Um, but it was turbulent, and at the same time I was trying to restructure the curriculum and I was trying to, and we we'd had an offstead and it had gone okay, it wasn't great. Um, I think we were given opportunity by the team more than anything, you know, to to kind of um they were giving us an opportunity to try because we were a new team, you know. So all of this was going on around me. Anyway, by May of that year, I still haven't been here a year, um, I was really lucky to get the job, the permanent job of chief exec and principal. Um, and at the time it felt I I I can honestly tell you that it felt um like a relief rather than a joy, because I it had been so turbulent, so turbulent for you know, I joined the college in September, this is May, and I don't think a week had passed without something, you know, and so I kind of by the end of that May, I felt like I'd gone, oh okay, all right, well we can crack on now.

SPEAKER_03 56:09

So it felt you've got the job and we can actually start tackling some of the issues and dealing with it, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 56:15

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 56:15

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 56:16

That was it was a tough year.

SPEAKER_03 56:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 56:18

Mainly because I suppose there's a couple of bits to it. I mean, it's a tough year because it was a tough year for the college, it was a really tough year. Everybody was looking in and everyone was commenting, and there was only a few people who were actually doing anything because it was just that kind of a year. And I think the other thing was I I literally had never been a principal, and I had definitely never been a chief exec. This is a huge organisation, you know, and it wasn't in good shape. And I, you know, the I think it would I don't know that it was entirely imposter syndrome, but there were days when I thought, what am I doing? Just because, you know, because there were things I'd never done before, there was there was stuff I'd never experienced because I hadn't had a reason to experience some of the stuff that was going on around me. And I think I think it was it was a it was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be when I said, I don't know if I can be the principal. Because I think that bit felt easy compared to the job I ended up in, which I really didn't, you know. I I called on my networks a lot, I talked to a lot of people who over the years I'd connected with. I got some amazing support from people in the sector that I'd worked for or worked with or just connected with at networking events. Um so people sent me a lot of stuff, they visited, they kind of were on the end of the phone, and I couldn't have done it without probably six or seven people who just routinely kind of went, Are you alright? Do you need anything? You know, and and I think our sector is a bit like that. You know, when when things are wobbly, there's always someone you can pick the phone up to, so which is a good thing. Um, yeah, it was tough, yay, that one.

SPEAKER_03 58:03

Wow. So when you turn up and it's the first day, CEO, you walk into the office, you close your door, you sit down at your desk.

SPEAKER_01 58:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 58:13

What's going through your mind at this point?

SPEAKER_01 58:17

Well, so at this point we've the FE Commissioner isn't interested really. But we're on watch, you know. But there's nothing really to see because we're a new team and we're, you know, motoring a little bit. Offset have been and gone and it's not great, and they are gonna come back, but you know, I think what so so I've got a context and I I've got a set of things I have to do. I've got no choice. And again, I come back to it's how I'm gonna do it that really matters. It's the things that there are some things you've you've you've no choice, you've just got to crack on. I think what I probably did first and properly, and I'd already been working on it, was establishing a team around me that would support me through rapid improvement. Because no matter where I looked, it was rapid improvement. So the the structure in the college felt a bit light on leadership, it felt a little bit fragmented. Um, culturally, the campus were our campus all have different personality, even now, and I love it. But at the time they felt like different colleges, not different campuses. So there was a lot to do. So I spent from the May to the summer term to the end of the summer term um getting a team together. So, you know, um, and some of those teams are still working here now with me, which is fantastic because they are excellent people. And um it took me probably three years to get the executive team, you know, uh the the sort of the heart of it is still the same heart of it, of people who are so committed to this organisation, it's unbelievable, you know. Um, and then to create a sort of curriculum leadership team that was strong because that also didn't feel like you know, the staff would were quite quiet. Um, so I set about creating a team that could could lead the college. And then when we hit the new academic year, um myself and Paul, who is our exec director of people, we determined that we would be um people focused. So we'd have a student first message, so all of our decisions, and they still are our student first. So, how will it affect a student? Will it make any difference to a student's experience? And that's kind of standard for us, which is really great. But that we would do a lot of work on the people culture, so so we you know, we we'd we do a lot more communicating and we get out and about, we try and be a lot more visible. Um I have to say that ironically, the turning point for us was um the COVID lockdown. So we we closed the college earlier than um we were supposed to. So we were a week early, we were locked down by the time lockdown was announced, we were done, um, which went down really well with our staff at the time. And then through that period, we did lots and lots and lots of communicators every single week, constantly communicating. Um, and I think that some of that established a sort of together culture, a team, chef call culture. Um, not entirely, but it was a an ironically good start. You know, it's just such an irony that something like that would make it. We went faster than we would have done had we not had that moment. I think when I, you know, somebody said to me not that long ago, what do you think the hardest decision you've ever made was? And I went, I don't think it was the hardest decision, I think it was a really easy decision, but it was a hard decision to position was um coming into work on the Monday morning and saying, from today, we're gonna close every campus, one day at a time, we're gonna close a campus. And I and as a team, I need you to go and do that for me, and we're gonna do it. So we're gonna work on telling people that's what we're doing, you're gonna actually do it. Off you go, you know, and we did. And my chair was alongside me, and we were done by Friday afternoon, and on the Monday, the whole country was closed, but we we were done, and we hit FE week, college closes down, kind of thing, and it's still the right decision. I still stand by it being absolutely the right decision, but you know, it it was a big decision to take, and I had a conviction about that one, and I wouldn't have ch I wouldn't change that decision, not in a heartbeat, but it wasn't popular, no, and it was criticised, you know, for a week.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:42

Six years ago today, the country closed down as a whole, yeah. Um okay, but all through this career story of yours, you're talking about people, the importance of being around people, whether whether it's the students, the staff members, and then suddenly you're at home.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:59

And there's nobody around you, yeah, and you're in this new job, you know. And yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:04

So I by then I I'm sort of three and a bit years in.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:08

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:08

Um, but it's been a bit of a slog over three years. You know, I think at this point we've had two or three Ofsted visits. We've had two full and a series of visit visits, and you know, there's always been something, and then then the lockdown, you know, and yeah, I found myself I mean, I was super busy the whole time in my house, you know, online, pretty much all the time. But also to some extent, you know, I'm I'm really lucky. My me and my family were we were all at home, my kids were in a good place by and large, you know. And we did this, this is a little bit of insight into me, literally, not me, the chief exec. So um, I joined our neighbours. Um, we we had fence down Friday every week. Literally. So we took a fence panel out and left it out, and we sat miles apart from each other with a fire pit each, and we sat every Friday um just for a couple of hours as far away from each other as you can possibly imagine, and we just sat there and the kids threw balls at each other over the fence, basically. Because they were already friends, but they, you know, they were on other sides of the fence throwing balls at each other, which was sometimes viciously, yeah, sometimes for fun. And and I, you know, I I really valued that whole experience in terms of I was really lucky. I was really lucky to be able to do that because there were times when, like everybody else, we were kind of oh yeah, this is hard. And then on a Friday we'd just be out the back with a fire pit. And the only time that that didn't work out brilliantly was when my lovely neighbour said, What I think we should do this week is make a cocktail out of all of the bottom ends of the booze bottles we've got. And I went, that is a terrible idea. Yeah, I it was terrible for her. That's all I'm gonna say about that. Right, yes, yeah, yeah. It's terrible for her. But yeah, yeah, yeah. I think from a college point of view, we did so much communicating. I am blessed to have some excellent people working with me who at that point really stepped up, and you know, the the marketing team here, the communications they did through that whole period were amazing. They worked tirelessly because a lot of it is just about what people came to expect to know. They just wanted clear direction. And so when we reopened, how were we reopening? You know, it was that was very different. It was very different. Um, I did spend a lot of time online. We did some socials in our exec team, and sometimes we were too tired to do the socials, but you know, we did a few socials. Um it was good to get back face to face. Um, at the time my deputy chief exec Anita, you know, we came back on campus, but we were still supposed to be. Keeping our distance, she was hopeless at that. Hopeless. The first thing she did was give me a hug, and I was like, mate, seriously. You know, but it was it was good to be back. Um, I think it really did accelerate how things were moving. I think you know, we gained pace in that period of time. And you know, there's probably I don't know, you could probably do a bit of research about that because it it it I think it actually was awful, but it helped. Because when we came back, I think we had a different attitude to each other and to communicating with each other. And we've we still do some of the things we were doing then, we're still doing them now because people seem to appreciate it, so we carried on doing it, you know, which was really good. Um was hard that though.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:44

Yeah. Amazing, isn't it? Yeah, just how that one event forged some really successful teams, I think.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:51

In terms of living through that whole thing and nobody knowing what tomorrow was going to bring.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:56

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Intense, very intense.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:00

Okay, so you've come back stronger from COVID, and then there's this sort of meteoric rise in terms of sorting the college out and moving it forward at pace.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:09

I I don't know if it's would it be meteoric? Do you know what I think?

SPEAKER_03 1:07:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:14

I honestly I'm really lucky because I work with some amazing people across the college and they're in all types of roles. And I think the thing that so I have, I mean, the people who work here might disagree, but I've been kind of persistent about something that and I and I like doing this, but some days I think, why am I doing this? So I'm kind of quite persistent about saying hello to people and genuinely stopping for a chat, and um sometimes I stop for a chat and I think, why am I telling you this? Like, you know, the human side of me, I'm having a chat about something, and I literally think, Why am I telling Alan? Why am I telling him this? And I'm just having a chat, you know, and and I think I'm not very good at so I I went and did a th I did a thing one day and I said, I don't know what a chief exec is, right? Because all I'm able to be is me. And everybody in the room burst out laughing and went, fair enough. And I thought, well, I don't really understand what am I supposed to be doing? And they said, Yeah, you you're probably better if you're just you given, you know. And I said, I know, but is it gonna like is that okay? Kind of, you know, how how authentic or whatever, you know, is is it all right to be just me? Kind of, you know, and and it's a it's a really interesting conversation because I'm not very good at um well, I suppose the long and short of this is yesterday, Monday night at home, I said, Oh, tomorrow I've got the Department for Education coming in and I've got this dinner I've got to do. So in the morning I've got to like, you know, suited and booted, I've got to look the part tomorrow. I literally said I've got to look at the part. My husband went, Your hair is pink, that ship has sailed and then left the room. And I thought, oh yeah, that's fair. And I think the thing that I've done in this job is allowed myself to be me. So I'm not really bothered about the ceremony of the job, um, the hierarchy of the job. I'm not overly interested in, yeah, I don't feel like I have to be in a suit, and I don't have to look a particular way. It's quite freeing to just be me. Um, and I am probably 95% of the time, this is yeah, this is who I am. So I'm wandering around just being me, which feels a lot easier. And I think the only thing I'd say about that is that what I've learned is not to be the me that my friends experience on a Saturday afternoon, because this is still my job, and this is still a serious job, you know, and people have the right for me to respect the fact that this is a chief exec job. They they they have the right to expect that of me. So, you know, I'm not frivolous about it, but I also can't, I don't feel the need to be seen as, you know, it's not something that is a seeing thing. This is more of how I do it. So I like to talk to people, I like to get around, I ask a lot of questions. I'm still really curious about things. I'm curious about people, I'm curious about how things work. And I spend a lot of time each year in staff forum. So I don't do the student forum anymore, which is a little bit disappointing, but the deputy principals like to do that, so fair enough. So I do the staff forum and I go and see staff teams. I try to see everybody once a year. Um, I spend about 45 minutes with each team without their managers, and I just kind of go what because I talk to the managers all the time, and I kind of go what's going on. How are you doing? What are you up to? You know, sometimes we we talk about um things that could be better, sometimes we just they you know, QA. Um hopefully it works for people. They you know, people turn up, so I'm assuming it does. Um well they get this version of me, there isn't another version of me. And you know, I don't know that I can do it any other way, yeah. And yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:09

But what do people want from their leaders? You know, authenticity, honesty. I've got a problem. Yeah. Can we chat?

SPEAKER_01 1:11:16

Yeah, and I you know, I s so sometimes when I think when I sort of reflect on this, I think nobody gets it right every day. And there are some days when I am catastrophically wrong. You know, and I can see it on the faces of the people I work with, they're going, What are you doing now? What are you actually doing? Or I can see them going, Are you sure? And I, you know, you I can read them quite well, and I I think some of it is about awareness that you might be getting it wrong. So, and some of it's about asking for feedback, some of it is I don't know, I I still find that you know, maybe once a week, once a fortnight, I'm still saying to people, I don't think I got that right at all. Or did that work? You know, I'm like, I'm really interested in if I've read a situation and think to myself, yeah, that wasn't my best moment, I'm really interested in kind of going, that wasn't my best moment. Do I need to? I think I'll say sorry. I'll go and find that person and I'll say that wasn't great. I'm so sorry, you know, and try and get a kind of conversation that puts it right. And you know, to some extent I have the privilege of doing that. The job gives me the privilege of doing that actually, because you know, I can kind of wander around and find people and go and ask them or talk to them, and generally it's okay. And people talk to me all the time in the lift now, which is lovely, it's really lovely when I think about that first sort of six months where literally silence in the lifts, you know, and now I'm in the lift and I'm trying desperately to remember people's names because I can't. And I'm like, oh who are you? I know your face. You know, it's it's such a privilege.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:53

It is, but if people turn up with smiles on their faces and they're happy, it's amazing what you can achieve, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 1:12:59

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:00

And believing that tomorrow's going to be better than today, it's just the golden rule of leadership.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:05

Yeah, and you know, even in a in a team, in a staff team of a thousand, there are always some people who it isn't working out for or who aren't as happy here as I would want them to be. But I I you know it's it's better than it was, and in an educational setting, it's it's constant improvement, it's continuous improvement towards the best state you can get to, and it will never be perfect. And I guess you know, one of my big takeaways, you know, if I think back to my kind of you know, this is a job where nothing's ever perfect, and if you're striving for perfection, this is a job that will you know the it will exhaust you. Um but you can do so much good, and it's you know, it's a joy to it's a joy to be part of this organization. It's really great.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:55

Wonderful. That's a great career story. But I've got one final question. Okay, if there's somebody out there, maybe they're lecturing or teaching on an hourly rate or something, and go, cool, I fancy being the chief exec, you know. What advice would you give them to actually make that step up and actually go for it?

SPEAKER_01 1:14:16

Well, first of all, I'd say go for it. I'd definitely say go for it. I say um, in my experience, the things that make jobs like that doable are good networks. Have people you can ask. Don't worry about asking. Ask for help, ask people to check what you're doing. Um work out the things you don't know and ask for help because there will be lots of things you don't know. Find the people that you trust and get them around you because you can't do it on your own. Absolutely can't do it on your own. But first things first, go for it. What's the worst thing that's going to happen if you give it a shot or if you take a punt?

SPEAKER_03 1:14:54

Exactly, yeah. Sounds like somebody else has been given that wisdom once before. Yes, exactly. Wonderful. Angela, it's been an absolute delight talking to you and hearing your career story. It's been wonderful to come here to the college and see it all, and how wonderful you've got your own podcast studio.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:11

It's great, this isn't it.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:12

It is brilliant. So thank you so much for freely giving your time and that honesty. And uh, I'm sure this story will inspire many others.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:20

Thanks very much. Thank you for listening to Inspiring Working Lives, the Morgan Hunt podcast, driving positive change and helping you to grow your career. If you've enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe so you don't miss the next inspiring conversation. For more insights, opportunities, and updates, head to morganhunt.com.